Pentagon: Longer-Term Impact of Airstrikes Minimal

WASHINGTON – U.S. air strikes against Sunni militants in northern Iraq have had a limited impact and are unlikely to break the group’s overall strength, a senior Pentagon official said Monday.

Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr., the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said American air strikes have slowed the operations of the Islamic State militants, but not undermined the overall strength of the group, also known by the acronyms ISIL or ISIS.

“U.S. air strikes in northern Iraq have slowed ISIL’s operation tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances towards the province of Erbil,” he told reporters. “However the strikes are unlikely to affect ISIL’s overall capabilities or its operations in other areas of Iraq and Syria.”

U.S. jet fighters and armed drones have carried out 15 strikes since Friday on Sunni militants in northern Iraq. The strikes have hit Islamic State artillery units, mortar positions and armored vehicles. Most of the strikes have hit Sunni fighters around the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where Peshmerga forces are struggling to turn back the militant threat.

Gen. Mayville said the U.S. air strikes have had a “very temporary effect” that “blunted” Islamic State forces.

He added that he “in no way” wanted to “suggest that we have effectively contained, or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of the threat posed by ISIL.”

U.S. strikes have also hit Sunni militant forces surrounding thousands of refugees from the Yazidi religious minority who are trapped in mountains. The U.S. has carried out daily humanitarian aid drops to provide the refugees with food and water. The Iraqi military has been using helicopters to rescue small numbers of the trapped refugees from the region.

But the U.S. is still trying to develop a plan to end the crisis.

Gen. Mayville said targeting of Islamic State fighters could become more challenging as they adapt to the air campaign and move to conceal their weapons and forces.

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